


(i bruised my heels on the swollen street)

by Petrichor (Mythmaker)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And sometimes you come home anyway, Antiquated LGBTQ Terminology For a Hot Second, Avoiding Therapy, Group Therapy, LGBTQ Themes, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of PTSD, Multi, Sometimes being alive hurts, Sometimes you forget how to live, The Realities of Chronic Illness, Timeline What Timeline, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24941434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythmaker/pseuds/Petrichor
Summary: Steve Rogers is a man without a real presence in the world. His existence is fabricated, edited, screened, and served bite-size to the public. His own history is easily forgotten. He can be forgiven for trying to find it again.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & NYC, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Peter Parker, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Wade Wilson
Comments: 21
Kudos: 156
Collections: Team Red Pride Bang





	(i bruised my heels on the swollen street)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the one-word prompt 'community,' personal tragedy, and Fight Club. I'm blessed to have art done for this piece by [deniigiq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq) (which i will place gently throughout this story). Written for the Team Red Pride Bang. 
> 
> I love Steve. But he doesn't share much about himself, and I wanted to figure out why.

//gravel and glass on the bottom of my feet//

The first one he visited had shitty coffee and a remarkably cavalier group leader.

"Hey folks! My name is Kai Nguyen. I know you've all likely visited a lot of support groups before you got to mine," he said, ruffling his somewhat scruffy hair. He looked like he was running on energy drinks and spit, yet seemed cogent somehow. "But I've got some ground rules we gotta go over first."

Those who were somewhat dull-eyed after the heat from their drinks suffused them, sat up in their seats.

"I promise, there won't be any contracts to sign, and I'm sure you've heard some of these points before, but they hold true here as well. All things shared here are kept here. As a trained professional I will report anything that might be considered a crime, but trust me - I haven't had cause yet, and I don't plan to."

The crowd seemed to ease at this, and some of the youngest present looked less like they were planning on fleeing into the night.

Steve sipped the shitty coffee and settled into his chair. The name tag he'd stuck on himself said 'Wayne' because he wasn't actually too creative with names.

(He could almost hear Natasha’s amusement).

"I expect everyone to be on their most open behavior. Our best is subjective, so it won't come up." There were a few brave smiles at that one. "But I can promise: this place? It's safe. And I'll do everything in my power to keep it that way." He shuffled a few sheets of paper and put them aside, then moved away from the podium.

"With that being said...I'll add a thank you all for coming. What you're doing is brave, and what you feel is real. I appreciate you for trying to find your way."

Steve wasn't entirely sure he was unrecognizable in a baseball cap and a used hoodie, but he was mostly here to suffuse himself.

Or, well. He hoped to let himself be distracted, perhaps.

In truth he wasn’t entirely sure why he was here.

But.

Well.

It starts like this:

There had been too much to read, to watch, to follow up on. And there was only so much Steve could do in silence, holed up in a condo (not even an apartment) that still felt shiny and new no matter how often he tried to mess it up. Old habits kept his all his ownings well-maintained. He couldn't deliberately damage anything when it meant having to replace it. Having to explain why something was broken.

Nothing was too complicated to use, however. His typing skills had atrophied almost entirely, so that was a trip. It wasn't like he was _actually_ eighty-plus years young, only just starting to try touch screen phones. There were no old habits to break. The rest all came to him naturally.

And yet.

One particularly humid evening, he started wandering.

There was no purpose to it. Not yet. He’d merely been curious about his old neighborhood. Things and places being altered didn't grate him so much as the people - behaviors more so than presentation. Culture shock didn't really describe the sensation, but neither did 'acceptance' - Steve wondered if that made him exactly as recalcitrant as certain pundits had been insinuating.

He ended up finding a church. Catholic and haunting, in the sense that it was the same as it looked nearly one hundred years ago, despite the huge tenements standing astride the green space it bubbled itself in. He remembered it, the way the stone had cracked with age. The iron-wrought fence enclosing the modest, but packed graveyard. They still hadn't managed to fix some of the stains from incense smoke on the ceiling. He held onto the fleeting memory of when there was a protest for worker's rights on these very steps.

It forced him to stop and stare. He hadn't thought about that in a long time.

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/9x9iloY.jpg)

"You looking for a group in particular?"

He glanced to his right. A woman wearing a soft silk scarf and horn-rimmed glasses was appraising him with a neutral stare.

"Not sure," he said, fairly confident she didn't recognize him. He was also fairly confident he had no idea what she was talking about.

She smiled. "There are a few the church admins don't mind and some that do. So this isn't the full gamut of options available for our community." A hand adorned in bronze bangles gestured to the wall nearest them.

A slew of posters about group therapy. Steve's mind drifted sharply to Sam.

"Ah. Right."

"It might be better to start at the rec center. There's several across Brooklyn, but I know of a few near here if you're in a hurry."

He wasn't in any hurry. "Sure - thank you."

She tucked auburn hair behind her ear. "Churches are where people gravitate to when they're lost, but it doesn't mean that's where they're supposed to end up," she explained, taking out one of the many donation envelopes available and writing down an address and phone number on the back.

"I think I was catholic once," Steve answered, hands in his pockets and not afraid to sound amused at the thought.

His helpful stranger chuckled. "Well that explains why you wandered here then."

It was so apt a description of his evening that Steve's gaze grew shrewd for half a heartbeat. "I'm Steve."

"Gina," she responded, along with handing over the donation slip. "It's good to meet you."

"Likewise. Thanks for the help."

"Glad to be of service," her words were honeyed with warmth. "Be safe tonight." Most people didn’t bother to grant him those words based on appearance alone. She reminded him of a neighbor – the widow Abernathy – who consistently fussed over him having enough to wear during the winter after his mother passed. Bucky hadn’t been the only one to be over-protective.

No one had bothered to do that for a long time.

On the steps of the church, Steve paused. He ran his hands over the stone, thoughts mired and sluggish, struggling to find purchase or direction.

It was an accidental presumption on Gina’s part. Steve didn’t need one of these groups to learn what he needed. He didn’t suffer in the same way. They would not know how to help him find his next steps.

But then, standing still was never his forte. And any direction was better than none.

//you kissed me like a soldier, headed for war//

"It wasn't the normal thing, you know - not the sound of fireworks or cars backfiring," Julia - as she had introduced herself - said, with a voice soft and rough from an obvious lack of sleep. "I was walking out of the lobby of my office and there was a local band playing. Full brass - tubas and everything. They were there all week for some kind of promotion or holiday. I can't remember now."

The conversation had been stilted when it was introductions, but now people had warmed up to the idea that they had come here for a reason. Kai wandered from small group to small group, all of whom were sat in small, circled clusters - listening in and advising where needed. Steve was used to the idea that it took time to get used to an idea, and positive peer pressure was in fact a thing. It was even a little good.

Julia paused and chuckled, the tone of it obviously self-deprecating. "I was so irritated afterward. I snapped at my wife and just, could not hold a conversation at work without feeling like I was gonna scream."

Steve watched her rub her cheek. "Everything boiled over a week later. I got home, I was in the bathroom, the radio was on, they were talking about a pilot who’d died in a training exercise, and suddenly just - everything was ringing in my head. I barely remembered what actually happened until my therapist literally carved it out of me."

She held up a hand, which was bandaged, her expression wry as she examined it. "I thought I cut my hand from a glass I dropped. I told myself that's what happened."

"What really happened?" One of their youngest asked, his eyes wide with concern.

"I punched out our bathroom window." Julia shook her head. "Can you believe that?"

"But why?" the same boy sounded so invested, Steve wondered if he was looking for a key to a puzzle of his own. "What set you off?"

"It was the band. It - they, um. I guess I thought they sounded like sirens."

Kai was there, listening in at the end, and let out little sigh. "Most surface level conversations about PTSD really don't talk about the weird, awkward stuff. Being irrationally angry, being paralyzed when you get set off. And those scattered, disconnected feelings - those are even harder to explain."

"Especially at work," said an older man – in his late fifties at least. He wore his former squad name on his sleeve - literally tattooed - and his nametag read Kevin.

"Or at school," the boy muttered. He couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen. His nametag read Cale.

There had been a kid in one of the units they ran recovery for, barely younger than Steve had been after he'd (what Sam had described as) went rogue. When he had given up listening to his government and gotten into the war properly, elbowing his way in with absolute aplomb. He remembered him because on one particular Hydra raid they'd hit a pocket of Nazis in the middle of a covert op – a pocket that had been carrying along POWs. It had been raining, and the soil beneath their feet had been like trying to walk through molasses.

The young soldier been happy for freedom, but he wasn’t ready for it. Always ended up taking the night watch, barely speaking to anyone. When he did sleep, he would only barely, and would wake screaming and crying. He remembered Dugan having to put the kid in a hold so he wouldn’t injure himself.

He never did make it home.

Something about Cale's expression reminded Steve of that kid. Of the long nights in Europe, trying to eschew the constant terror of their situation. It was not what humans were built for. But they kept trying, didn’t they? Making an attempt at turning man into machine, for convenient use and disposal. Whether it was as a weapon of war, or simply grease to keep the engine of profit running.

Sometimes he could see why Tony stuck to robotics.

Steve had his sketchpad on his lap. Quietly, he drew a few more lines. Honestly he was half-expecting for someone to tell him to stop, but no one ever did.

“My stepdad’s been pretty great about it,” Cale found a lull he took comfort in. “He keeps telling me to tell him whenever I need anything, no matter how ridiculous it is.”

“That’s great,” Kai enthused, still a little sleepy around the edges, but genuine.

Cale rubbed his neck. “I have problems telling him stuff, but it’s nice to have the option.”

“Can’t knock a good support group,” Kevin mumbled into his cup while the rest of their little company chuckled, a gentle sound.

Bubbling up from the depths of his memories, Steve recalled watching his mother get hit, protecting him, even when she was already beaten down, bruised. It made him feel worthless. The sensation of helplessness doubled by not just youth, but frailty.

You really couldn’t knock a good family. Built from scratch or otherwise.

Steve continued to listen. Every story made him consider a piece of his past, one bite a time. He still felt awkward, a thinly veiled outsider. But there was something here that drew him in, made him remember.

It wasn’t the first time he wondered if the serum had immunized him to less visible issues. He was sure he should have PTSD. He swore he’d likely had it before he went off and became, well – what he was now. And maybe he had echoes of it, but obviously it wasn’t the same. Had he a right to be here at all?

No one questioned his silence.

They had no idea it was because he didn’t know what to say.

//i’m a dying man and i don’t know what for//

Admittedly, he wanted to prove he could, in fact, handle the realities of this century. That was what he told himself at first, since there had been a lot of talk from certain Russian redheads and elusive billionaires about "Can Steve Rogers learn how to internet?", like he was a one-trick pony and not an entire circus.

But that wasn’t it. Not entirely.

Idle, was what Steve felt, he realized. Truly. Even with all he did in service of his people, he was stuck in a holding pattern he hadn't known to break. Things seemed to happen to him, up until Steven happened right back. Control was fleeting, because he wasn't sure what he wanted control of.

He wasn't sure he'd had control over much since he joined the army.

With that thought in mind, he pulled out his phone and reviewed the list he’d eyeballed over the course of last week.

Guilt ate at him again, especially as he hovered over one group name in particular.

He wasn’t a survivor. Not like they were.

And yet he wanted to hear them. Wanted to see them. To know them.

Thus, he did.

"So, on a scale of 1 to Nature Valley granola bar, how much of your lives are falling apart?"

The words echoed through the room, cavalier and cheerful. It cracked all the ice around the edges and made a few folks chuckle, albeit nervously.

“Can I be macramé instead?” asked an older woman, her body hollow and eyes sharper than knives.

“Only if you eat it, Gladys,” the incredibly scarred man chirped, shifting in his seat ahead and to Steve’s right. Steve could only see part of his profile, but he sounded vaguely familiar. “I’m always just below the holy granola bar. But that’s normal for me.”

“A Reese’s cup,” a young man said with longing, dark skin still somehow paler than expected in the washed-out lighting.

“Eating one or being one?”

“Both?”

The scarred man laughed loudly, corralling the others in the plastic chairs around him to smile. “God, to be a candy bar – ”

“Don’t make it dirty, Wade,” came the long-suffering-yet-still-amused voice of their leader. A woman with black hair and golden loop earrings. She hid most of it in a loose headdress, but he could see some peeking out, curling on the sides of her round face.

“That’s a prerogative of mine Shirley.”

“Maybe give us a rundown of your week instead,” she retorted, sounding for all the world like she did this every day.

“Ooh – yikes, maybe I shouldn’t,” Wade said, an over-exaggerated wince twisting his lips. “I have to stay un-incarcerated to work.”

“Work that would get you incarcerated?” Gladys asked, voice hoarse but still biting, all amusement.

Shirley raised an eyebrow, smirking at Wade’s exaggerated shushing noises (and following rude gesture) before she looked encouragingly at Reese’s Cup. “Jake, what about you?”

“I just finished dealing with hospitals and have been deemed safe to leave the house,” Jake threw up some unenthusiastic horns. “Woo.”

“No more chemo?”

“Only another round to go. I miss my hair.”

“Just think of all the hair pieces you can buy!” Wade waved his hands. “Clown wigs are way less maintenance than you think.”

Jake leaned back, adopting a hurt look that held no real pain. “Don’t call me out like that man, I have a reputation.”

Shirley held up a hand. “I wanted to make sure we got all the intros out of the way before we devolved into our usual shenanigans. It’s nice to see everyone made it this week. As always, Tian will make sure everyone gets their usual shots of preferred poisons – some more literal than others.”

An Asian woman was handing out tiny red Solo cups. Some were filled with juice, or soda. Steve relegated himself to water. Upon side-eying Wade, the man was pouring his to the brim with a flask he’d obviously brought with him.

Steve felt that.

“To those who’ve fallen,” Shirley raised her cup. “And those who survive.”

They all raised their glasses and knocked them back. Steve tried not to feel like an invader of the worst sort, and was mollified that – once again – there was no pressure to explain himself.

Stories continued to pour forth, focused more on venting, commiseration, and learning how to deal. It wasn’t as formal as the last meeting he’d been to, but he supposed with cancer (and other chronic illnesses) as the main headliner it was either be completely serious, or embrace some dark, dark levity – or possibly both, one step at a time.

“Did you find anything for the pain yet Wade?”

“Just alcohol, hard drugs, and death,” the man said, sounding more serious than he had for most of the session.

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/9K75LwD.png)

“Hey man, every time I go in for treatment, I just think about you, you know – your whole thing. You give me a lotta strength,” Jake insisted. He didn’t sound disingenuous, which Wade seemed to notice by the way there was an absence of scoffing. “I can’t imagine doin’ what you gotta do.”

“I’ve had practice,” Wade promised, voice turning rough at the edges. “Besides,” Steve leant back at the tonal shift. From dark to light. “I find new, inventive ways to numb it down.”

Shirley interjected. “Don’t let him give you ideas.” She waggled her cup at him. “We’ve talked about healthy coping mechanisms Wade.”

“And I’ve ignored them entirely,” he said, disgustingly saccharine. “But the lady’s right. Kids – don’t do as I do or say. I’m like anti-Sesame Street.”

The man’s face was genuinely captivating. Steve couldn’t help but encapsulate it in coarse graphite, shrouded as he was a row back. He was certain plenty of people had given the man grief about his appearance outside these walls. But no one in the group gave him a second glance. He was known here.

Steve pondered this. The freedom and oppression of being known. It couldn’t have been easy, either way. He thought about his willingness to simply be himself, and realized he could barely manage it with people he trusted with his life.

Sometimes Natasha would squeeze in a more intimate question than her usual, when she dared to be openly curious. Steve might answer directly, but often he offered no reason to his explanations, no backstory. Sometimes he’d consider it, but withheld at the last second.

What was the point of holding things so close to the heart? Few people he had known when he was young were still alive. And those that were….

Steve wasn’t actively trying to be closed off. It was more to the fact that folks never felt the need to pry. They assumed about him; thought they knew him. His story was in every school book, readily available in most museums, all over the internet. One could see why they didn’t bother.

He adjusted his beanie, feeling a growing sense of unease. The nametag he’d scrawled _Cornelius_ on was already peeling off.

“Be happy you can drink,” Gladys said primly. “I have been denied my mid-noon mint juleps.”

“How southern _are_ you?”

“My mother used to make those.”

It took a moment for Steve to register he’d spoken at all.

“Oh yes?” Gladys looked to him, still steel-eyed, but oddly curious. “What did she prefer?”

“Whatever bourbon she could spare. When we had bourbon,” Steve had opened a door so he might as well step through it. “It was kept in a jug she’d had from before I was born, I think.” He remembered the smell of it. “She always added thyme. She grew it on the balcony.”

Gladys raised one eyebrow. “A woman with good taste.”

Steve smiled, lifting his head to meet her gaze. “She’d have been glad to hear you say that. No matter what I was sick from that week, no matter how many shifts she’d worked, she would always have a glass of it just before Sunday.” Upon further consideration he smiled. "I have no idea where she learned how to make it."

Sarah Rogers had worked double shifts at a garment factory. One she often ended up either picketing, or scabbing for, depending on if she needed the funds to keep them fed. When she died, he had done nearly anything and everything he was allowed to. But being plagued by most illnesses under the sun tended to make him a less-than-worthy applicant. Bucky had done his best to get people to give him a chance, but Steve didn’t make it easy by virtue of his body being what it was.

 _You have to let go of the past to move forward Stevie_ , his mother always said.

What happens when the past is what was lost? What if someone got stuck moving forward, and lost track of what made them?

“You? Sick?” Jake inquired, eyeballing him skeptically up and down.

“I caught hell for it all the time,” Steve said. “As well as the flu, pneumonia, bronchitis, and – well, you can imagine.”

Shirley looked at him, her freckled face surprisingly neutral. “Polio?”

“I’d be very dead now, if I had,” he answered honestly. If there were any reason to be alarmed that she had asked him about a disease that had been eradicated (in these parts) since the 1990’s, he didn’t show it.

Wade, however, had turned himself around to look at Steve. He stared at him with a face that had started out blank before slowly ratcheting up to disturbingly happy. That grin might have made a lesser man nervous, but Steve had seen Tony Stark wear that same face – for entirely different reasons probably, but still. He could handle it.

Before the man could open his mouth, however, Steve added, “I did have pretty terrible asthma. And a chronically weak heart. And iron and calcium deficiencies.” That last bit he would never had known had Dr. Erskine not read him his chart the night before things changed forever.

“You _had_ asthma?” Wade asked this of him with the enthusiasm of a puppy, complete with tail wag.

“Among other things,” Steve answered, getting the distinct impression he’d been very much found out, and not minding as much as he probably should.

“Don’t interrogate him,” Shirley warned, with the lazy confidence of a tiger.

As much as he was finally feeling comfortable enough to share, Steve appreciated a reprieve. “It’s alright.”

“We have rules for newbies, and one of them is we only get to ask you about your situation once, if that, on the first night. You come around again, and we get to ask you more.”

“That sounds good to me,” Steve said, feeling just a little lighter.

//we talked about our mothers, kissed the wounds of our fathers//

“Wade insisted on giving me an email address. I’m not sure what to make of the handle rarity_rawks69@hotmail.com, but…well, it works. I think I’m getting fan mail.” Wade did not do subtle. Well, at least not on paper. Steve still had the nagging feeling he knew the man.

“Glad to hear you’re makin’ friends,” Sam said as they stood in line. He looked more amused than anything else. “What is your email address anyways?”

They hadn't shared because they both tended to prefer texting, or phone calls. It just hadn't come up.

“It’s funny you should ask.” They shuffled closer to the counter. Steve eyed the menu briefly then turned to Sam. “Steve Rogers was pretty much taken.” In every iteration known to man. “Captain America felt a little trite.” And it too, was impossible to get a version of that wasn’t riddled with random numbers.

“So… ?”

There was an embarrassed pause. “galway1922.”

“Galway – Ireland?”

“It’s where my folks immigrated from.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sam marveled.

“Amazingly, it’s not flaunted much.” They did enjoy advertising his humble, catholic origins, but he never saw specifics listed anywhere in regards to his parents. Perhaps in some academic journal somewhere. Just not in the Smithsonian.

“Yet another of America’s heroes, made possible by immigration?” Sam looked like he was trying not to laugh. “Color me shocked.”

Steve tried to remember what he was planning on ordering. The Papaya Dog they were frequenting was remarkably busy, but then this was Manhattan at nine in the evening – he shouldn’t be surprised.

Sam was in town more and more often these days, and Steve sought him out with increasing frequency. But he had to admit, there was an air of confession hanging around his shoulders this time.

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/umn6IXP.png)

“So you said you had something to ask me?”

They’d ordered their hot dogs. Sam’s arrived first, and he was adding condiments as Steve watched the pick-up counter with obvious, fixed interest.

“I’ve been going to group therapy.”

Sam nearly dropped his hot dog.

“You’re what? Where – for – wait. What? Why?”

Steve belatedly considered the fact that Sam might wonder if he’d – on a professional level – missed something cancerous. He blinked and waved a hand. “It’s not what you think.”

“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”

“Fair,” Steve said. “But it’s _really_ not what you’re thinking. I’ve been visiting a few different ones, all for different issues. Not mine. Not my issues. I want to clarify – I’m fine.”

His friend squinted at him. “Shopping around group therapy sessions doesn’t sound like something a ‘just fine’ person would do.”

It took a moment to try and work through that bullheaded stare Sam was giving him. Words were hard to find to explain his actions, and frankly he still wasn’t sure of the reasons himself. In fact, it’s almost as if this was the purpose of inviting Sam out for dinner. To force the issue out into the open.

A subconscious at this level of goody-two-shoes would get him killed one day.

“I tried going to places where people congregate, but no one talks to strangers in public unless they need help. Try to get to know new people at a park or a bar, and all I get is performative nonsense – of a brand I’m not really learned in yet.” He shook his head, apologetic. “I’m used to making friends forged in fire. I don’t think I know any other way.”

Sam didn’t interrupt, but gave up a small grin in response.

“I tried to read history, but history is always a bit one-sided, depending on who wrote it. It didn’t feel like _understanding_. So, I just, tried to walk through my old neighborhood instead. One thing led to another and –”

“And someone told you group therapy wasn’t a bad idea?”

“I took a chance,” Steve said simply. “But I feel guilty.”

A knowing expression settled on Sam’s face. “Because you feel like you’re invading their privacy.”

“I’m deceiving them. Making them think I belong – I don’t know if can do it again.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “I’m sensing a ‘but.’”

“But” he acquiesced. “It’s been,” there was a brief struggle to find the right word. “Helpful. To me.”

His friend’s face turned thoughtful instead of accusatory, and Steve let his mind breathe a little easier. Perhaps he hadn’t completely made an ass out of himself. “What kinds of sessions did you go to?”

“There was a group for people dealing with PTSD. Another for narcotics and alcoholics in recovery. I also visited one for chronic illnesses and cancer.” Steve’s voiced softened with every admittance.

Instead of berating him (which was what Steve was admittedly expecting), Sam smiled. “You ever ask yourself why you chose those?”

There was moment of silence, wherein Steve realized he never had.

“I can make a few guesses. PTSD seems a little obvious, but you were drawn to it because it felt like familiar ground. No doubt you met people who got what being at war really meant. That makes perfect sense to me.”

It was why Steve got along with Sam in the first place.

His friend bit into his hotdog and chewed thoughtfully. “Chronic illnesses… don’t the stories always say you were medically unfit for service?”

“Not just stories,” Steve clarified with a tiny grimace. “And my mother passed away from pneumonia.”

“Ah.”

They were interrupted by Steve’s order popping up on the counter. Comfortable silence followed them outside onto the street, where they leaned against the store windows, eating with ease.

Putting more thought to his present once again had him digging up his past. Looking sideways, he considered present company and shrugged – mentally and literally. “My father was an alcoholic before he died.”

“…And that explains _that_ one.”

“I appear to be fairly predictable.”

“No – not that. Just human,” Sam quickly amended. “You’re looking for things that remind you of home is all. Even though, well – I guess for you, home’s pretty long gone.” A light seemed to go off above Sam’s head. “Oh man, I never even thought – it’s true. You’re kind of a refugee.”

“I’m not fleeing persecution,” Steve gently reminded.

“No, but you lost your home anyway. That’s step one.”

At Steve’s silence, Sam put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, once. “Maybe you should find someone you want to talk to about this. Doesn’t have to be me, by the way. I don’t got the hubris to insist on that. But if you do want to, I’m here.”

Steve ducked his head. “I appreciate that.”

Demolishing the hot dogs and papaya juice (Steve realized at the register that he’d never had papaya before – and while this wasn’t probably the best introduction to the fruit, he had to admit was a fun one), they stood together, watching the bustle swarm and bellow around them.

“Which one you plannin’ on going to next?”

“I didn’t say I was. Planning on it, I mean.”

“Well, if it’s helping you, it’s helping you,” Sam countered. “You shouldn’t have to feel guilty. Obviously don’t lie if they outright ask you, you know, but most groups don’t bother with that level of digging. It’s not why they’re there.”

“You would know.”

“I really would.”

Steve almost had an answer for him, sitting on the tip of his tongue. But it wasn’t one he felt ready to share. Not yet.

//you coulda been my sister, you woulda been my brother//

The young woman in a light blue headdress hissed something to the blonde girl next to her, and tugged at her sleeve. They conversed in badly hidden whispers before the blonde sighed. "Hi - hi I guess. My name is Zoe."

"I'm Nakia Bahadir," the girl in the headdress supplied, sitting rather formally, her bearing tense. "I'm here to support my friend," she said in no uncertain terms.

"And I'm very not straight but I have no idea what that means," Zoe spoke hurriedly. "So uh, I’m not really here to explain myself. Like, at all. Okay? Okay."

"Zoe!" Nakia hissed, again.

"It's alright!" said their group leader, Bakhta - a tall, dark-skinned woman wearing bright oranges and yellows. She had an accent that carried a strong hint of African descent, but Steve wasn't too knowledgeable about which part it might have hinted to. "No one ever has to explain themselves here. We’re all on journeys of our own making, and all at different crossroads. Be prepared to not know very much, often.”

At this statement, Zoe nodded, still entirely unconvinced, but slumped back in her chair. Nakia went to put a hand on her friend’s shoulder, but stopped herself at the last minute.

“Who’s next?”

“I’m Peter.”

A young man probably settling into his twenties, with brown hair curling at the ends, sat ahead of Steve. They were lined up in rows. Even sitting behind, from this distance, Steve could see the tension coiled in those shoulders.

“Happy to have you with us Peter.” This greeting was acknowledged with a small, tight nod. “As a note to all people here for the first time, please do not feel any pressure to share. We all understand that trust takes time.”

When it came to his turn, Steve introduced himself as James and breathed an internal sigh of relief when he saw no one pull a double-take. Though Peter’s head lifted curiously; Steve ducked his own, once again guarded by a baseball cap.

A distressingly young girl, at most sixteen years old, was the first to open up with something real. “My father’s gotten a restraining order for my mom. It’s not – he’s not really good with everything else, but he’s been trying you know?” She sounded so small. Steve was amazed to see her by her lonesome. Was her father nearby?

“I’m so happy to hear that Amanda, but I’m sorry it came to such desperate circumstances.” Bakhta said softly. “Please – continue.”

“She wasn’t going to let me go. She didn’t want me to be me.” She shook her head, ponytail bouncing as she did. “I didn’t even want to do anything drastic – I was willing to – to wait. But … she just kept pushing, and pushing.”

There was a soft noise of sympathy from Zoe.

“At first it was all just ‘for my benefit’ or ‘for my own good,’ and lots of the things she said sounded reasonable. But they felt wrong – and when I told my dad, when I came out to him, he just looked so sad and upset.” There were tears running down her cheeks. “I thought he was mad at me, but I realized – it wasn’t me he was angry with.”

There were nods all around. Nakia looked torn between rage and horror.

“People make a lot of justifications for doing what they feel is right,” Bakhta murmured, offering a tissue to Amanda, who accepted in a hurry. “But we all learn that if someone does make excuses for a ‘good cause’ – well, they’d do it for a bad one too.”

Steve watched Peter’s shoulders bunch up.

“We have a couple of out-n-proud trans kids at our school,” Zoe blurted, looking as though she’d vibrate out of her chair if she didn’t speak. "They're probably your age and would love to be a resource."

Bakhta nodded. "As long as Amanda feels safe and her father approves, I'm sure there could be arrangements made. Just know that you’re never under any obligation.”

“It’s easier to love ourselves when we feel loved _as_ ourselves,” Nakia murmured, seemingly forgetting she was speaking to an audience.

The teen conjured a wobbly smile. Steve tried to bury the innate fury that always burned under his skin at the evidence of such abuse towards an innocent. Natasha would be the first to say that the world was cruel like that; unfair by nature.

Steve always felt that meant people needed to make their own justice. Perhaps that was part of why he couldn’t put down the shield. Not yet.

There was a break after a few other members shared updates, some of which appeared to be ongoing sagas, like Amanda’s. Others tended toward expressing snippets of current frustrations. Unlike the other groups, instead of coffee, there were a lot more snacks, all brought by individuals. Some were even homemade.

“I’ve never had one of these before,” Steve muttered to himself as he examined one of the boxes on the table.

“What, a pop tart?”

Peter put down a somewhat bent box of Goldfish crackers when he asked this question, dark eyes evidently incapable of hiding his amusement.

“Some people go their entire lives without trying a thing,” Steve defended himself in good humor. “I’m not a big breakfast person.” Not for lack of trying. Something about old habits and skipping meals to save money.

The young man’s face did a little squiggle, apparently trying for two different emotions at once. “So, what brings you here?” he asked.

“You first,” Steve responded, tone deceptively light. He kept his attention on the pop tart nutritional facts, radiating calm.

There was a sigh in his peripheral. “Yeah, alright. Fine. I don’t really have things I wanna share this time around, so sue me. A friend recommended I go tonight, and I’m already regretting it.”

Steve didn’t point out that it sounded like he’d be making a second appearance. “Not big on sharing?” he lifted his gaze to meet Peter’s directly.

“Never have been. I’m a clam.”

A wry twitch occurred along Steve’s lips. “I feel like we share a similar sensibility there. But I do like going to sessions like these. They help, even if I don’t say a word.”

“Really?”

“I’ve always been more of what you might call an active listener.”

Peter snorted. Steve genuinely wasn’t sure if he was caught out – like he had been with Wade – or if the younger man was simply trying to put himself at ease by finding someone he could talk to, without the threat of a spotlight.

Feeling generous, Steve gave a small, restrained sigh. “I think I’m trying to remember who I was.”

Peter studied him quite seriously for a beat. “Well, that’s a two-step process. Find out who you are and do it on purpose – as the great Dolly Parton once said.”

Steve made a mental note to find out who Dolly Parton was.

“That’s pretty deep for someone who doesn’t have anything to share.”

Peter grinned sideways. “A friend once told me I either think too much or absolutely not at all.”

Honestly, Steve was pretty sure he’d been told that too, once upon a time. Or yesterday, even.

A memory drifted past, clouding the present. Café Society had been brand new, yet immediately infamous, known throughout all the boroughs for it’s brazen bucking of social norms. He’d been warned away plenty of times, but had wanted to see it for himself. A place for pansies, or fairies – terms he knew were no longer acceptable – and anyone willing to let bygones be bygones. Integrated in full from the start, and willing to fight any opposition to stay standing.

He’d gotten into so many fights outside that club. He was sixteen when it opened, which did not bode well for Bucky’s sanity. Nor his mother’s, he remembered. The thought threatened to open a well of sadness in him when he realized she’d died only a year later.

It startled him when he grasped just how much of himself he’d left behind, buried in the ice. He hadn’t meant to, but – deserting things so important to himself would not do.

“Will you be here next week?”

“Will you?”

Steve rubbed his neck. “Sure.”

“Then maybe I’ll give it another shot.” At his raised eyebrows, Peter shrugged. “I’d say ‘what’s the harm in trying to open a clam?’ except it usually results in them dying so I’ll just leave it at ‘maybe there’s hope for an asshole like me’ instead.”

He couldn’t help a grin at the sentiment. “That sounds fair.”

// forget about your ego, forget about your pride, and you’ll never have to compromise //

Natasha stopped by his condo bearing a fruit basket. Which, Steve genuinely wished, was the start of a joke.

“I don’t like these things. Not too big on fruit.”

Steve blinked. “Where’d it come from?”

“Nowhere.” Natasha could always be relied upon to be mysterious, sometimes for no other reason than her own personal amusement. “Do you like pineapple?”

“I’ve not had the chance to try it.”

“Then I’ll make you a smoothie. Let me in.”

If Natasha noticed that his place was messier than usual, she didn’t mention it. Steve cleared some of the clutter, most of which were doodles he’d not bothered to organize, and left them in a stack on the coffee table. The fact that he had a coffee table was still a bit of a wild notion. Then again, so was the notion that he could buy coffee – and a cup of it might put him back five damn dollars.

Expensive items were cheaper. Cheaper items were more expensive. It was like everyone forgot how much five cents used to buy.

“Did Sam tell you to stop by?”

“I’m no babysitter,” Natasha answered by flipping a knife into the air, the picture of deadly elegance. “I would only stop by if I felt you needed _counseling_ on a matter.”

Steve sighed. Deeply. “He really needs to stop telling you about what I do in my spare time.”

Natasha pouted at him. “You presume he does it on purpose.” Miraculously, the pineapple was already in several, perfectly even slices. They’d been skinned too.

“We don’t torture friends, Ms. Romanova.”

“I would never.”

“Just socially?”

Natasha’s cool eyebrow shifted into a barely bit back grin. “Let no one say you don’t have a sense of humor.”

Their banter put on hold by the sound of an active blender, Steve took a moment to study the woman who’d found strange footholds in his life and refused to leave. “Are you adding tequila to that?”

“Whoops.”

“You know you don’t have to sneak alcohol into my beverages to get me to drink it.”

Natasha poured a little lime juice into the pineapple-smoothie-turned-margarita. “Where’s your salt?”

After succumbing to the inevitability of his current situation, Steve retrieved the salt.

“You don’t strike me as the type to do therapy in public,” Natasha eventually commented, nestled comfortably in one of the love seats he had somehow acquired. Tony was generous, but never explained himself, and left Steve bewildered when houseware just found its way to his doorstep.

He nudged her feet off the table with his own. That battle was never-ending. “I’m not.”

“You know I’m going to ask ‘then why bother?’”

It was, despite everything, still a good question – from an outsider’s perspective. Despite it being reasonable, Steve decided to play a game of cat-and-also-cat instead. “Did you know that I frequented gay bars when I was a teenager?”

He wasn’t looking at Natasha when he spoke, so it took an incredible amount of willpower not to grin stupidly when he heard her nearly spit out her drink.

Feeling residual sheepishness, Steve gave himself over. “I’m a private person, but sometimes I think I help myself forget on purpose. I didn’t remember that I had until very recently.” He took a sip from his glass. “I have group to thank for that.”

Natasha glared at him. “Obviously I - but that’s,” she trailed off, looking less irritated that he’d gotten one over on her and more pensive. “Hm. I didn’t think of you as a club scene kind of guy.”

“I’m really not. But I’m also not sixteen anymore. By any stretch.”

“Did you go with anyone?”

“Only stag,” he admitted. “We had a few ‘eccentric’ neighbors who made a point of hauling anyone willing for nights out on the town. I could only manage it when I had a paycheck.”

She inclined her head, obviously ready to ask him more about the subject at hand, before she stilled for a heartbeat. If he hadn’t known her so well, Steve might have missed the pause entirely.

“Are those …?” she tilted her chin in the direction of his sketches. Wade’s profile was on the top of the stack.

“Yes,” he admitted. He’d never been shy about doing studies in public, or anywhere for that matter. He wished he knew where his sketches of the Howling Commandos had gotten to. “All of them seemed pretty happy to be drawn, thankfully.” Steve had given one or two away (Gladys had looked suspiciously moved when he’d offered.)

Natasha plucked the first sketch to study further. Silence reigned for a few moments, and Steve grew to enjoy the oddly acidic flavor of pineapple.

“I’m glad.”

“Hm?”

Natasha lifted her gaze to meet his. “I’m glad you’re doing this. I might not understand why, but if I could give you the agency you’re looking for, you’d already have it. So I’m glad.”

It was true, he realized. He’d been bereft of a personal goal, one that had nothing to do with his responsibilities as a hero, a soldier, or a friend. And while he might not yet know it, he was feeling more prepared to start looking.

“Steve Rogers is dead,” he said, raising his glass.

Natasha smirked, eyes warm in muted light, and raised her glass in turn. “Long live Steve Rogers.”

==

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“Wait, are you saying I gave _Deadpool_ my personal email address?”

Natasha started laughing a deep belly-laugh he hadn’t quite known she was capable of.

“Natasha – please tell me I didn’t.”

Well, shit.


End file.
